Until the thunders of the siege began,he had never known anything but a happy,placid,quiet life.Even though his mother paid him little attention,he had known nothing but petting and kind words until the night when he was jerked from slumber to find the sky aflame and the air deafening with explosions.In that night and the day which followed,he had been slapped by his mother for the first time and had heard her voice raised at him in harsh words.Life in the pleasant brick house on Peachtree Street,the only life he knew,had vanished that night and he would never recover from its loss.In the flight from Atlanta,he had understood nothing except that the Yankees were after him and now he still lived in fear that the Yankees would catch him and cut him to pieces.Whenever Scarlett raised her voice in reproof,he went weak with fright as his vague childish memory brought up the horrors of that first time she had ever done it.Now,Yankees and a cross voice were linked forever in his mind and he was afraid of his mother.
Scarlett could not help noticing that the child was beginning to avoid her and,in the rare moments when her unending duties gave her time to think about it,it bothered her a great deal.It was even worse than having him at her skirts all the time and she was offended that his refuge was Melanie's bed where he played quietly at games Melanie suggested or listened to stories she told.Wade adored “Auntee”who had a gentle voice,who always smiled and who never said:“Hush,Wade!You give me a headache”or “Stop fidgeting,Wade,for Heaven's sake!”
Scarlett had neither the time nor the impulse to pet him but it made her jealous to see Melanie do it.When she found him one day standing on his head in Melanie's bed and saw him collapse on her,she slapped him.
“Don't you know better than to jiggle Auntee like that when she's sick?Now,trot right out in the yard and play,and don't come in here again.”
But Melanie reached out a weak arm and drew the wailing child to her.
“There,there,Wade.You didn't mean to jiggle me,did you?He doesn't bother me,Scarlett.Do let him stay with me.Let me take care of him.It's the only thing I can do till I get well,and you've got your hands full enough without having to watch him.”
“Don't be a goose,Melly,”said Scarlett shortly.“You aren't getting well like you should and having Wade fall on your stomach won't help you.Now,Wade,if I ever catch you on Auntee's bed again,I'll wear you out.And stop sniffling.You are always sniffling.Try to be a little man.”
Wade flew sobbing to hide himself under the house.Melanie bit her lip and tears came to her eyes,and Mammy standing in the hall,a witness to the scene,scowled and breathed hard.But no one talked back to Scarlett these days.They were all afraid of her sharp tongue,all afraid of the new person who walked in her body.
Scarlett reigned supreme at Tara now and,like others suddenly elevated to authority,all the bullying instincts in her nature rose to the surface.It was not that she was basically unkind.It was because she was so frightened and unsure of herself she was harsh lest others learn her inadequacies and refuse her authority.Besides,there was some pleasure in shouting at people and knowing they were afraid.Scarlett found that it relieved her overwrought nerves.She was not blind to the fact that her personality was changing.Sometimes when her curt orders made Pork stick out his under lip and Mammy mutter:“Some folks rides mighty high dese days,”she wondered where her good manners had gone.All the courtesy,all the gentleness Ellen had striven to instill in her had fallen away from her as quickly as leaves fall from trees in the first chill wind of autumn.
Time and again,Ellen had said:“Be firm but be gentle with inferiors,especially darkies.”But if she was gentle the darkies would sit in the kitchen all day,talking endlessly about the good old days when a house nigger wasn't supposed to do a field hand's work.
“Love and cherish your sisters.Be kind to the afflicted,”said Ellen.“Show tenderness to those in sorrow and in trouble.”
She couldn't love her sisters now.They were simply a dead weight on her shoulders.And as for cherishing them,wasn't she bathing them,combing their hair and feeding them,even at the expense of walking miles every day to find vegetables?Wasn't she learning to milk the cow,even though her heart was always in her throat when that fearsome animal shook its horns at her?And as for being kind,that was a waste of time.If she was overly kind to them,they'd probably prolong their stay in bed,and she wanted them on their feet again as soon as possible,so there would be four more hands to help her.
They were convalescing slowly and lay scrawny and weak in their bed.While they had been unconscious,the world had changed.The Yankees had come,the darkies had gone and Mother had died.Here were three unbelievable happenings and their minds could not take them in.Sometimes they believed they must still be delirious and these things had not happened at all.Certainly Scarlett was so changed she couldn't be real.When she hung over the foot of their bed and outlined the work she expected them to do when they recovered,they looked at her as if she were a hobgoblin.It was beyond their comprehension that they no longer had a hundred slaves to do the work.It was beyond their comprehension that an O'Hara lady should do manual labor.
“But,Sister,”said Carreen,her sweet childish face blank with consternation.“I couldn't split kindling!It would ruin my hands!”
“Look at mine,”answered Scarlett with a frightening smile as she pushed blistered and calloused palms toward her.
“I think you are hateful to talk to Baby and me like this!”cried Suellen.“I think you are lying and trying to frighten us.If Mother were only here,she wouldn't let you talk to us like this!Split kindling,indeed!”